Each year, we've taken different looks at various aspects of the truly overwhelming spectacle, often reporting on special beers we've tried both at a media luncheon held by the Brewer's Associationand on the expansive, intimidating tasting floor at the Colorado Convention Center. And there's always the colorful people to profile, plus looks around the city on an annually changing tour hosted by Visit Denver.

Matthew Schniper

A great costume paired with a great photobomb. Well done strangers.

Since the whole thing can only really be sampled, not consumed in full — with 745 breweries bringing 4,809 beers this year — please accept the following post as a totally scattershot summation of what we happened to experience in our guided and personal wanderings.

First, let's all congratulate Trinity Brewing Company, the only Colorado Springs brewery to medal this year (not counting our Rock Bottom location, who appeared to have won more on the larger corporate banner than as any one location). Scroll through the following list of winners this year, and you'll see Trinity rewarded with a gold medal in the Field Beer or Pumpkin Beer category for its Elektrick Cukumbahh. 13_GABF_winners.pdf

Next, check out a few photos from Denver's hip new community market, The Source. Think of it as a bigger Ivywild and a good model for what the Colorado Springs Public Market could become, or outdo, even. We stopped by on our tour partially because Crooked Stave, who I recently mentioned here, just opened its new taproom inside the collaboration.

From the media luncheon — which at times features beers that you can get ahold of locally and at other times beers you must purchase at a respective brewery or at least in or near that state — there were several memorable brews served, but two in particular caught my camera's attention. (Bryce will post some audio soon from Brewer's Association founder Charlie Papazian as a follow up to this post.)

The first specializes in truly local ingredients, meaning they actually are able to source all their grain from in-state. They served us a wonderful IPA aged in a Deerhammer Distilling Companybarrel. The latter, despite the name Black Shirt, actually brews only varieties of red ales. They served us a red saison and red porter, both quite good.

Matthew Schniper

The scene in the taproom at Denver's Our Mutual Friend.

Matthew Schniper

Black Shirt Brewing Co., located in the RINo Art District, brews only varietals of red ales, an interesting niche.

Now, to the tasting room floor for the Friday evening session.

As per my usual method of sampling, I skip everything that's a standard style (like amber, brown, porter, IPA, etc.) and try to find the most unique, odd and interesting beers available. The stuff with odd ingredients, as you'll see below. Here's just 10 of the fun beers I got to try, which in my opinion would make the fest's pricey and hard-to-come-by tickets worth the hassle. (We were comped as media, as in past years.)